Can Preschool Boost School Readiness Among Young Children of Asian and Hispanic Immigrant Mothers?

Purpose. With a growing concern about child care due to demographic changes in American society, the majority of children under the age of five participate in non-parental care arrangements. In addition, young children of immigrants are the most rapidly growing segment of the child population in the U.S. With these demographic changes, policy concerns have focused on how to meet developmental needs of children of immigrants and promote their school readiness. Children of immigrants might be a group that would particularly benefit from preschool, given the acculturation value of preschool and its disproportionate benefit for socio-economically disadvantaged children. However, only a few studies have to date examined this topic. Therefore, using a nationwide sample from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), I examine how preschool experiences at age 4 are associated with school readiness at kindergarten entry among children of Asian or Hispanic immigrant mothers. Also, I investigate whether the association between preschool and school readiness differs by maternal acculturation. Given that children of Asian and Hispanic immigrants are by far the largest groups, I focus on studying young children of both groups.

Methods. I use a sample of about 1,550 children whose mothers were foreign-born Asians (n≈850) or Hispanics (n≈700) and who had valid information on preschool care arrangements and on at least one of the outcome measures. Child care arrangements at age 4 are defined as five groups—Head Start; prekindergarten (i.e., state-funded prekindergarten programs); other center-based care (i.e., day care centers, nursery schools, or other preschool programs); home-based care (i.e., care from relatives or non-relatives), and exclusive parental care. The outcome variables are three measures of academic school readiness (i.e., reading, expressive language, and math scores) and four of socio-emotional and behavioral development (i.e., approaches-to-learning, pro-social behavior, and attention and externalizing problems). To reduce omitted variable bias, I employ regressions with rich controls and earlier outcome scores.   

Results. I find attending preschool is associated with better academic school readiness at the year of participation among children of both Asian and Hispanic immigrant mothers, but these beneficial associations do not hold up at kindergarten entry among children of Hispanic mothers, while such associations (mostly in prekindergarten or other center-based care) are still found at kindergarten entry among children of Asian mothers. I also find higher levels of behavior problems and lower levels of approaches-to-learning among children in Head Start compared to those in parental care in both groups. In addition, I find more pronounced beneficial influences of preschool on academic school readiness at the year of participation among children of less acculturated mothers in both Asian and Hispanic groups, but these additional advantages are gone at kindergarten entry in both groups.

Implications. This study provides empirical evidence showing how attending preschool influences school readiness among children of Asian and Hispanic immigrant mothers. The findings suggest policymakers need to pay more attention to the quality of preschool settings, especially Head Start, and to increasing awareness of and accessibility to preschool among immigrants, particularly less acculturated immigrant parents.